That's Good Enough For Me
by Caramel Machete
Summary: Bruce attempts to bake cookies for Alfred to mark Alfred's anniversary of coming to the Manor. It doesn't go well. So he decides to go full Batman on the shortbread. Gotta do what you gotta do. Or, that one time when Batman wore an apron.


"I'm buying Alfred a new oven," Bruce mutters. He pulls the cookie tray out of the oven and drops it in the sink. With brittle, black edges, dry brown centers, and the acrid smell of unfettered carbonization, Bruce doubts that even Titus would eat them.

This is his sixth tray in the oven, and third batch of dough. The first had seemed promising initially. He'd tried the dough and it was tasty. Then, he could barely get it out of the bowl because it stuck to the spatula, the sides of the bowl, his hands, everything. Eventually he got it onto the floured marble surface, but it stuck to the rolling pin. He could barely roll it out, and when he finally did, it stuck to the marble. He couldn't get it to come out of the little cookie cutters. He gave up.

Second batch - the first sheet tray burned, the second tray he managed to get out on time but the cookies were crumbly, brittle, and tasteless. He continued to try, but none of the results had been edible so far.

He just couldn't get it right. How could baking possibly be so hard? Lots of people baked. It's not like it's rocket science.

Now that he could do.

Bruce glowers at the oven for another minute before pulling out his phone and typing "most accurate gourmet oven" into the search bar. He's reading an article with great attention and care when he notices the smell of burning permeate the air. Again.

Suddenly Tim is there, grabbing oven mitts and pulling the tray out. The smoke alarm blares. Tim turns the oven off and fans the air with a towel.

When the smoke alarm stops ringing, Tim placidly pours two cups of coffee and passes one to Bruce.

"Ever occur to you to set the timer?" he asks.

Bruce points an accusing finger at the stove. " _That_ doesn't have a timer anywhere."

"Yeah, this brand doesn't have one built in. Alfred keeps some in the drawer to the left."

It hadn't even occurred to Bruce to look. "$15,000 oven and it doesn't even have a timer? I'm definitely buying Alfred a new oven."

Tim stirs his coffee, staring at the liquid. He picks up the cup and takes a deep inhalation, steam curling up and around his face. Not looking at Bruce, Tim states, "Maybe it's not the oven's fault, Bruce."

Bruce crosses his arms and grunts.

Tim glances at Bruce from behind the dark fall of his bangs. "You could have used the timer on your phone, or paid more attention to the clock. Cooking is just chemistry, B. Treat it like a chemistry experiment."

Bruce picks up the recipe he printed from the internet, gingerly because it is splattered with flour (one time he'd dumped the flour in when the mixer was going too fast and it'd puffed everywhere), smears of butter, and drops of dough.

"This is nothing like a chemistry experiment. It's so imprecise. One cup of flour? What does that even mean? How is that an acceptable unit of measurement? A teaspoon? It's ridiculous. What if my cups and spoons are different than others?"

Tim sets his mug down and looks at Bruce with a studiously blank look. "You know that there are standard sized measuring cups and spoons sold especially for cooking and baking, right? You're not just supposed to use random things from your kitchen."

Bruce doesn't move.

"Oh my God. You didn't know. You just used whatever you found in the cupboard."

"No," Bruce grits out, but Tim obviously doesn't believe him. Why do all of the Robins grow up and stop listening to Bruce? When did Tim start talking back to Bruce? It wasn't fair.

Tim pointedly looks at the pile of dirty dishes in and surrounding the sink. He meets Bruce's eyes and slowly, deliberately, raises one eyebrow.

Bruce can't help the twitch of a crooked smile on his lips. "Insubordination," he grumbles. Tim laughs.

"I'll help you clean up. I think you should take a break for the rest of the day."

Bruce can't argue with that assessment. "Chemistry, huh?" he asks as he wets a dish cloth.

"Yes. Try British recipes. They're measured in metric."

Bruce grunts a pleased acknowledgement. Sometimes he's incredibly thankful that the Robins did grow up. "When did you get so smart?"

Tim glances down shyly, red creeping up the back of his neck. Bruce is content.

"Why are you doing this anyway?" Tim says.

"It's Alfred's anniversary of coming to the Manor next week. I thought . . . it seemed like . . . cookies. Shortbread cookies." Why was explaining himself suddenly so difficult?

Tim seemed to understand anyway. "You're practicing, so you can make some for him as a present?"

Bruce nods.

"You'll figure it out," Tim says. He picks up the recipe between two fingers, extended well away from his body. "And maybe don't choose a recipe just because the author has a cooking show on TV."

Bruce concedes the wisdom of this.

Over the next few days, Bruce mulls his cooking experience over. Chemistry is well within his bailiwick. Some might even say that Bruce is a bit of a chemistry genius, and they wouldn't be wrong. No false modesty. Just an accurate assessment of his skills. Now, how can he make baking more into a science, instead of an art?

A couple of days before Alfred's anniversary, Bruce executes his plan. He discovered to his delight that not only are British recipes written in metric, but that many of the ingredients are weighed. So much more _precise._

Bruce decides to move his baking to the laboratory in the Cave. It has the best equipment and Bruce knows where everything is. He can set the environmental controls of the lab for a consistent room temperature and humidity, filtering out the dampness of the cave. Too much moisture in the air could affect the final results. He does take a few supplies from the kitchen, however; Alfred's KitchenAid mixer and an apron among them.

Pristine stainless steel, chrome, spotless white and sparkling glass surround him, and he feels significantly more in control and comfortable here than he ever would in the kitchen upstairs. And if he's wearing the batsuit without the cape and cowl, well, there's no one around to raise an eyebrow. No one to judge the apron over the suit. Or take incriminating pictures. Flour on black Kevlar was impossible to get rid off. Bruce doesn't want to dwell on how he already knew this.

Bruce had spent many hours finding the top rated recipes online and in cookbooks by British authors - Barry had been puzzled but willing enough to swing by London and pick up some books from Waterstones - and compiling them onto a spreadsheet. He analyzed the ratio between ingredients, temperature, bake time, as well as codifying reviewers' comments. Fortunately many recipes called for only three ingredients, so the analysis had been straightforward. Even including the recipes that also required salt or vanilla, the analysis had been well within his capabilities. Bruce is satisfied that he'd found the best recipe at the end.

To dress up the basic shortbread, Bruce has decided to dip each piece in chocolate after baking, but other than that, he wasn't going fancy. Classic shortbread, perfect for enjoying with tea.

Bruce places a sterilized glass beaker on top of his lab's scale - technically, a semi-micro balance accurate to the 1/1000th of a gram - zeroes the machine, and measures the flour, adding tiny amounts until he had the exact amount. He places the beaker to one side and repeats the process with the butter and sugar. He's memorized the recipe, of course, but double-checks the amounts out of a strict adherence to proper procedure.

He follows the rest of the recipe, feeling confident in his technique after watching dozens of videos on how to cream butter and sugar together. (He may have also called a couple of renowned pastry chefs in Paris and New York of his acquaintance. But they'd been sworn to secrecy.) When the butter and sugar are the ideal consistency, he stirs in the flour, then dumps the dough onto the floured the stainless steel work surface. He rolls out the dough until it's precisely two millimeters, as measured by his favorite pair of calipers. He uses cookie cutters to make twelve biscuits, and they go on a prepared tray into the glass-fronted lab fridge with guaranteed thermal regulation. He confirms the temperature on the digital controls and sets a timer for thirty minutes.

When the timer dings, he places the tray in his Thermo Scientific heating and drying oven. The carefully calibrated equipment has excellent temperature stability and accuracy, and he'd tested it yesterday. He's confident that the microprocessor controlled heating elements will maintain a precise 160 degrees Celsius for his cookies. There's also a timer - built in! - with a professional ding.

Bruce allows himself a small smile when he takes the tray out of the oven. The aromas of rich butter and warm sugar reach his nose, and the cookies are the perfect delicate blond shade. He shaves a bar of German semisweet chocolate and then reviews some case notes while he waits for the cookies to cool. When they're ready, he uses another beaker to melt half of the chocolate shavings over a bunsen burner, then adds the rest to melt off the heat. According to his research, melting the chocolate in this manner would keep it shiny and unblemished when it hardens. He dips each biscuit in the chocolate and sets them to dry.

Bruce steps back to admire his work.

It is more than acceptable.

Now he just needs to repeat the procedure until he can execute it flawlessly and replicate it error-free on the day.

Bruce fishes out his cell phone. "Tim, can you patrol tonight? I'm caught up with a project in the cave and just made a breakthrough."

A few days later, Bruce heads up the long stairs of the bat cave to the manor just before tea time and arranges the cookies on a plate. Aesthetics aren't his strong suit, but he manages a neat presentation. Bruce puts some water on to boil and then heads off to find Alfred.

Alfred is in the den, humming the BBC's theme to their cricket Match of the Day program as he dusts.

"Why don't you take the rest of the afternoon off? You can put England's latest test on and I'll bring you a nice cup of tea?" Bruce asks.

Alfred shoots Bruce a sharp glance. "What have you done?"

"Nothing."

Alfred's alert gaze settles on Bruce. After a minute, Bruce tenses and relaxes the muscles of his shoulders. In anyone else, it would be considered a squirm.

"Well, I may have spilled coffee on the new Dunhill bespoke."

Alfred shook his head. "And made the stain worse for sitting, I daresay. It's a shame, but I'll do my best. Nevertheless, that doesn't seem quite sufficient for an afternoon off." Alfred's eyes narrow as he continues to study Bruce.

"You just deserve some r and r."

"I'm not the only one in this house who does, mind you, but I think I shall."

Bruce hesitates. Alfred is giving in much more easily than he anticipated.

Alfred picks up the remote and elegantly settles himself in the middle of the couch. "My dear boy. Whatever you are hiding can be discovered after I watch the cricket for an hour or so."

Bruce grunts and excuses himself. He returns with the tea and the plate of shortbread on a tray, placing it on the coffee table.

Alfred examines the cookies with interest. "I am quite sure we didn't have chocolate-dipped shortbread in the Manor. Did you pop out to Cakesmiths?"

Bruce shakes his head, feeling like he's seven and presenting Alfred with a crayon drawing.

Alfred's eyes sharpen even as his expression softens. "You made these?"

Bruce nods. Sometimes having the reputation of being a man of few words has its uses. It means Alfred doesn't expect a verbal reply.

Alfred picks up a piece of shortbread. He turns it to examine both sides. "Well, it's a lovely bake, I'm pleased to say. The chocolate looks lovely as well - I can tell that you tempered it properly." He pauses, giving the cookie a rather insulting amount of scrutiny, and Bruce feels a flash of worry as Alfred hesitates.

"They're edible, I promise."

"Of course they are. You obviously put hours of effort into these. No matter how they taste, that's good enough for me." Alfred clears his throat and bites into a chocolate covered corner. He nods as he chews. Bruce almost squirms again as he waits for the pronouncement. He's the goddamn Batman and he's terrified of what his butler might say. What if, despite everything, they're not good enough? The last thing he wants to do is to disappoint Alfred. Bruce refuses to allow his heart to beat faster. Physiological stress responses are not allowed.

Finally Alfred makes his pronouncement. "Delicious. Absolutely wonderful."

Bruce closes his eyes and breathes through his relief. When he opens them, Alfred is smiling.

"These are indeed splendid, my dear boy." It seems as if Bruce was not the only one remembering a much younger Bruce presenting his work for approval. Alfred continues, "I know the kitchen is not your normal area of expertise. What was your secret?"

"I made them in the Batcave, not the kitchen." Bruce enjoys Alfred's shocked expression. "Happy anniversary, old friend."

* * *

Author's Note: This is just a fun little fic because I've been having lots of feelings recently about Bruce and Alfred's relationship, and I also had a mental image of Batman in an apron. I hope you enjoyed.


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